This has been, according to the TV anchor who delivers the weather forecast to me each morning, a “proper winter” in New York City. Unfortunately, that anchor is Canadian, which means he has higher—or lower, depending on your outlook—expectations for the elements at this time of year. By proper, he obviously means a relentless two-month stretch of freezing temperatures, slate-gray skies, and slush-strewn streets.
What’s a tennis player to do in an environment like this? How do we stay dry in our water-unresistant sneakers? The winter game for northerners is, more than anything else, about reducing. In the summer, we play at outdoor clubs and parks, surrounded by trees and sun and high blue skies. When I play during those months, I can see branches above the courts, old Victorian homes that line a nearby street, and, far off in the distance, poking its towering head above a line of apartment houses, the Empire State Building. What can I see when I play in winter? A bubble. Soft, smudged, greenish-white, and not all that far above the playing surface, it keeps the cold winds out, but it also keeps your lobs from flying as high as you might like. Instead of birds in the trees, all you can hear indoors is the ceaseless hum of the heating system.
In summer, every court can seem available. If you’re at a club, morning singles might turn into pick-up doubles after lunch. If the facility at one park is full, you can try another across town. In winter, little seems available; all of your partners are packed into one foursome, on one court, for one hour, once a week. There’s no time for lingering, for talking politics or movies on changeovers—you barely have time to mutter a complaint about the snow. When the bell rings at the top of the hour to let you know it’s time to go on, you’ve only got so much time to find a groove and work up a sweat before it rings again to let you know it’s time to get off. Not long after the soreness in my shoulder has vanished, and the tightness in my hamstring has gone away, it’s time to put on my coat (and hat and scarf and gloves) and head back into the cold.
As a car-less New Yorker, I’ve spent as much time this winter traveling to and from the courts as I have on them. It’s a journey that starts in the sudden, stuffy heat of a rush-hour subway train. There, amid weary workers heading home and hopeful revelers heading out, my tennis sneakers look bizarrely, childishly white, and my long Adidas racquet bag takes up valuable between-person space. While the U.S. Open is played in New York, tennis as a recreational sport will never fit comfortably alongside the city’s grunge and hustle. A basketball court, with its pounding rhythm and masses of people moving as one, makes more metaphorical sense.